First results from Ground-based Observations of the Ring Plane Crossings of Uranus

Details First results from Ground-based Observations of the Ring Plane Crossings of Uranus First results from Ground-based Observations of the Ring Plane Crossings of Uranus

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.1011d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #10.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.427

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

In 2007, the rings of Uranus appear edge-on as seen from Earth for the first time since their 1977 discovery. Three ring plane crossings (RPX) occur over a 9.5 months period: 3 May 2007, 16 August 2007, and 20 February 2008. The Sun crosses the ring plane on 7 December 2007 (equinox). By the DPS 2007 meeting, the first two crossings will have taken place. We will present RPX observations obtained with the 10-m Keck, 8-m VLT and 5-m Palomar telescopes between May and September 2007 (Keck observations were already obtained in May, June, and July). This period includes the RPX on August 16, as well as times when we observe the dark (unlit) face of the rings (May-August) and the lit side under small ring inclination angles (August-September).
Our first ground-based image of the dark side of the rings of Uranus revealed a system that differs radically from what has been seen before. We saw a broad, undulating cloud of faint dust permeating the ring system. The dust showed essentially no correlation with the well-known narrow rings, and also showed almost no correlation with the embedded dust rings imaged by Voyager. The distribution of dust within the Uranian ring system appears to have changed significantly since the 1986 Voyager flyby.

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